But frankly, I’m also glad that the Canadian lego man with the flag didn’t get wiped out!

If you take a 5, 10, 20 and 50 dollar bill, and fold them in exactly the same way, you get frightening representations of iconic U.S. Government buildings and the trees that surround them, being turned into images of the attack on the twin towers on September 11, 2001.

Note that although these bills have been reissued from time to time with enhanced security, they have not been fundamentally redesigned since well before the tragedy of the twin towers in New York.

Starting with the 5 dollar bill. The back of the 5 has a picture of the Lincoln Memorial on the back, and was originally issues in pretty much this form in 1929. Usually it looks like this:

However, if you fold it in half, and the fold the two sides back on themselves, it looks like the twi towers, complete with antennas.

Next, the 10 dollar bill. This was redesigned in its current form in 2000, and features the U.S Treasury building on its reverse:

Fold it exactly the same way as above with the 5, and you see this image:

The 20 dollar bill was designed in its current form in 1998, and shows a picture of the White House on its reverse:

Once again, fold it in exactly the same way, you see this image:

Finally, the 50 dollar bill shows a picture of the U.S. Capitol on the reverse, with the note being redesigned in its current form in 1997.

Fold it the same way as the others, and you get this eerie ghosted image of smoke rising where buildings used to be.

And if you line the all up alongside one another you can see just how scary this is!

Conspiracy theories about the twin towers attack abound. Click here for the wikipedia entry dedicated to the various theories.

All images are subject to copyright.

… but much more beautifully, with an emphasis on the mechanical, rather than the electric.

One such example are Brady&Kawalksi typewriters. Check these out!

… and they even have a pic of me using one of their machines at the flea market.

You can find them on facebook here, and you can buy their excellent typewriters here and of course they have a fab little website where you can learn about how to look after your little piece of history!

I love that people care about stuff like this.

Something that we all spend a lot of time looking at are of course the indicators for when we can and should not, cross the street.

In Berlin, there was a battle fought by the citizens of the unified city to keep and indeed rollout the old East-German Ampelman, with his business like walk…

… and his endearing, “give me a hug”stop.

Then there are the connect the dots men of Singapore, with their funny third leg…

But my favourite that I came across recently when on our holiday in Cambodia, was the little running man of Siem Reap. They aren’t on every junction, but you can spot them occasionally. Only a video does it justice:

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 60,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 22 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

There is so much to see here, my favourite at about the 1:20 mark, where you can see the top of thunderstorms, with hundreds of little mini lightening strikes dotting the skies.

The new Harvey Nicks christmas viral ad is all about the walk of shame. OK, so all girls of have done it. Guys generally have too, although not as conspicuously (given that we lack the imagination and need to wear significantly different outfits in the day or in the evening (Jeans? Tick. Shirt? Done. Jacket? Sorted. etc)

Here is the ad (can’t wait to see what the spooferati have to say about this!)

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So EITHER this is a disaster of an ad, that just leaves me feeling sad. It certainly doesn’t give me a warm inner glow about the advertiser (even the soundtrack makes me sad). And are Harvey Nicks saying that if you are hot, and happen to be covered by a ray of sunshine when the camera is rolling, and flash a smile at the bin-man on your way into your home, then it’s ok to walk in shame?

Alternatively, its a genius play by Harvey Nicks to do something about the well documented and problematic drinking and yob culture that we hear about constantly. Just last week we heard about the alcohol driven liver disease epidemic in the North East, and concern from parents about a quarter of girls having sex before the age of consent.

A recent survey also found that teenage girls have regrets about their actions after alcohol fuelled nights out.

So could it be that that is the message? Is Harvey Nicks actually making a public service announcement?

I had a quick look at the twitter hashtag #walkofshame, and based on what I saw there, it seems to be mainly people tweeting about fellow train passengers who have passed out or worse. Seems to support the second motive.

What do you think?

Not so.

Today marks the day that the 747-8 received its wings (so to speak) by being given its certification by the Civil Aviation Authority in the USA.

It looks awesome – check out the pics, and also check out the brilliant Boeing video in which the test pilot has “a little moment” after landing safely back at base.

And the Boeing Promo video below if you want to check that it flies (by the way, I find the whoops and cheers from the people who obviously built it, a little disturbing… what where they expecting it to do if not fly off?!)

Also check out this excellent CNNGo article that compares the 747-8 with its nemesis, the Airbus A380. 

The VIP rows, waiting for the arriving VIPs are in front of the US army generals in the background. Each has a name and the bunker that the VIP has been assigned to in case there is a rocket or mortar attack.

A very sad indictment of the Iraq that the US are leaving behind.